


Fame

by Burning_up_inside



Category: Tiny Meat Gang
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Tour life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:42:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22416457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_up_inside/pseuds/Burning_up_inside
Summary: What happens on tour, stays on tour.
Relationships: Aleena/Noel Miller, Cody Ko/Kelsey Kreppel, Cody Ko/Noel Miller, Cody Ko/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 71





	1. Hotel

**Author's Note:**

> Cody-Centric. He’s a dick in this but he’s trying. :)
> 
> —————  
> Each chapter can be read stand-alone, each piece is the end of its own story.

The hotel room isn’t his or somebody on his team booked it but he doesn’t remember ever getting the key. It’s trashed, looks worse than he feels. 3 bottles of Veuve opened and unfinished, spilled and dried on expensive carpet. Something like vomit or maybe just food.

The window is open faced to the spread, glaring at the sheets in rays of golden pain. Cody pretends that it’s okay to be vertical, sitting and swaying at the edge of the bed with sheets pushed to the floor and wrapped under the legs of a girl who’s too young to even want to look at right now.

The view of the strip is cheap, laid out like a movie where it matters that he’s rich enough to afford the room. He keeps burping, she stirs. He bounces through six pre recorded responses locked in the excuse part of his brain that’s shut down for maintenance while he tries to just stay upright.

He decides against conversation and dares to challenge his spinal cord and meanders naked in cold artificial hotel air to the bathroom. 

His pee splits into two streams. His head pounds. Regret, Regret, Regret.

Cody more or less falls asleep standing up and then is pushed startlingly into the land of the living by two skinny arms snaked around his waist. 

He thinks she says good morning or something that sounds like that. Her voice is strangled, wrapped around a wire pole.

“Good morning.”

They play through the motions of conversation, he remembers why he liked her, she’s funny and endearing and young. She’s pretty and a fan and doesn’t understand boundaries. She wraps her hand around his dick thats flaccid and not peeing any more just to have it in her hand. 

He shies away and she notices, he feels bad about all of it and her.

She gathers her things and wets her hair in the sink. It’s shrunken to her head and she pulls it apart with water and prunes her self in the mirror bathroom where he’d left her.

He’s still naked and nauseous and leering from a hotel chair. He pulls himself away slowly to the comfort of sinking and peels a robe off the floor. It has stains on the pocket, it smells like alcohol.

Time passes or it doesn’t and she’s out of the restroom and she looks just like she did in the crowd and backstage. Like a mistake waiting to happen. 

She kisses him deeply and he kisses her back, it’s silent expect for the pulse of his heart and the hum of air conditioning.

He says sorry. She tells him not to apologize. She tells him while holding the door half open that she’s going to be at the show in Tampa and the only thing Cody can think to say is..

“Ok.”


	2. Context

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How we got to where we are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cody sounds like a dick but I promise he is not. He’s just sad.

All of the so called pre-disposed fame they acquired came quickly and harshly. A sneak wave, an undercurrent that smacked them in the knees and laid Cody on his face.

It’s amazing. It’s everything a kid wants, fuck that even grown men. It’s like recalling a dream how everything happened. 

Before, just after they’d released their tour dates and recalled them, released broke bitch and then untitled. When he was 3m on YouTube before the massive security rule recall. In 2020 even after 2019 which seemed like the biggest growth he could do, Noel could do. 

In 2020. He’d gained 3.5m more subs. They changed the entire leg of their North American tour to a predominantly music set, he produced for fucking Post Malone. Noel and him went on Jimmy Fucking Fallon. He listed 7 figures in his bank account. He moved into the hills in a house he didn’t need.

It’s humbling, but it mostly makes you feel like the world you created at your feet could always fall. With an entire team fussing at your appointments, dealing with stylists and grocers and what ever the fuck else.

It was like dying, like being reborn. Looking yourself in the mirror and deciding that you market well. Fame doesn’t feel like winning. It just feels like change. 

Noel had proposed to Aleena in the summer of last year. Their wedding was soon. Kelsey always has this look in her eye these days. He holds her while she’s sleeping and he thinks a lot about if he loves her enough.

Her channel grew too, he doesn’t pay attention. Not like he use to. He makes enough money that she doesn’t pay for anything but her clothes. He’d insisted. At the time it felt chivalrous.

He gets recognized more, and he likes it less. 

Noel is the same. Annoyingly unaffected, he’s grown just as much, his sub count on twitch basically tripled but even when it’s just them he’s still so grounded in himself. Cody feels like his life has been on permanent sway. 

Noel and Cody discuss ending the pod frequently, they got into a scandal with bonus episodes and missing episodes and being accountable. They still do it every week. They’ve run out of things to say.

He’s walks a lot these days. He has a nutritionist and a trainer so working out feels like a job, the walking is for him. To exist somewhere outside of his head.

Cody watches Kelsey’s face while he fucks her. He’s looking for someone that’s not there. She hasn’t changed. He loves her company. She hasn’t changed, but he has and he’s looking in her for pieces of him and he doesn’t see it the way he used to.

He watches her face when she cums and compares it to the girls he fucked on the tour and he thinks she’s the most beautiful but he’s not sure.

He’s not sure about too much these days. He’s famous or something like it and he worked hard for it and he’s happy more than he’s not. He thinks.  
He tries to be at least.

He’s grown but Cody doesn’t know where.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lied about the updating thing. Lol :)


	3. Noel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cody is lying to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave comments cause idk what im doin

Noel laughs at him when he drudges to the hotel lobby, suitcase, bags and eye bags to accompany him. Noel genuinely belly laughs at Cody's misfortune and to top it all off, Noel essentially looks like hes been showered in morning dew and sunshine.

Noel asks if Cody had a rough night, like he hadn't been there to watch him fall, all he can do is laugh and nod and groan. Cody's phone starts ringing and he feels the name more than sees it. His manager urges them to hurry, that the plane can and will leave without them. He hangs up before she finishes. He pulls his cap lower on his head. 

They make conversation idly while they walk and he feels normal, laughing and talking, he feels sometimes that their words have gone stale and superficial. Noel seriously considers buying a Rolex. They walk through the Venetian hallways and high ceilings. Noel is steering him to the exit and Cody fights to remember any part of this hotel that he gambled at the foot of all night.

The conversation dies when a girl with a bob and something to prove stops and asks for a picture, she says her cousin is a fan. When she posts it and tags him later that day, Cody realizes he didn't smile in the photo.

They're at the tail end of the connecting malls and his wrist hurts pulling his bag and he's more tired than he should be. 

"How was she." its not many words but its the inflection, its a secret Noel wants to be apart of and a secret Cody's is fighting to forget.

"The same." Cody doesn't see himself distribute the shame. 

Noel hums to fill the silence and it stings like a gunshot. He doesn't know who he's lying to, or if he should be lying at all. Noel tells a story in pursed lips and drawn eyes. Cody looks away.

Conversation starts in the backseat of the Uber, mumbling complaints about schedules and fans. Noel keeps interupting himself in the middle of a story about some asshole at last nights show with a hard-on for jeering to be somewhere he literally paid for, interjecting with side notes or jokes that Cody laughs at and half listens to.

Noel also loves to pretend he doesn't have any judgements about Cody's less than faithful behavior, Noel also like to pretend he doesn't participate. Not when they both have some girl on their laps whispering in their ear, backstage at a show. Its easy to dismiss because its nothing really. It's just getting the edge off, cumming in your fist when your thirty years old does something to your spirit.

It's not like it happens often, and its never meant anything. It's just all the shows blend into eachother and the clouds all look the same from the planes. 

So when Noel asks if Cody if he even knew the girls name, on the plane an hour and a half later. 

Cody just says,

"No."


	4. I’m sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody’s not a good person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for any spelling or grammar errors. I’m a fuckingn idiot. Also the tone in this is supposed to be minimal and I really don’t know if it’s transferring

“How do you lie to her, like if you really fucking love her or whatever.” Some 21 year old girl slurs into his ear.

It’s a valid question but it doesn’t mean anything in the context of all the other things he’s hiding. Cody pretends to laugh and the buzz he’s riding from a fucking white claw muddles the heart ache.

A beautiful girl with too much to say, kisses languidly along his jawline as she inquires about his failing relationship and he aches into it.

“I love her yaknow, but let’s not talk about it. I wanna talk about you.” He regales in true asshole fashion and he doesn’t feel the words on his lips.

She hums into his mouth when she kisses him and he feels that, he guides his tongue into her mouth and presses his front to hers.

He doesn’t know her name but he knows what her pussy feels like wrapped around his fingers, how she moans. His wrist aches cause she’s splayed over his lap. The room is so dark around them and he tries to imagine Kelsey’s face. He tries to imagine her to give himself an excuse. 

But this girl won’t shut the fuck up, putting on a show he didn’t pay to see and his head is pounding and he feels like his dick is deflating. 

She’s on the ground the next time he conjures his thoughts together. 

“Sorry, fuck.”

He holds his body, putting his head in hands. She says something. Yells. He can’t hear it and he doesn’t know why he doesn’t feel bad. He’s flaccid

She’s already gone when he looks up. His dick is still out. He jostles his pants over his hips and pulls himself to the edge of his personal green room and flicks the light on. 

Cody peers into the fridge and pulls out anything that looks like alcohol, pours himself into the bottle and drinks the pain.

Someone hammers the door, he ponders not answering.

It swings open anyway, he doesn’t have to decide. 

“Bro, everyone’s getting ready to go some after party thing. Wipe the pussy juice off your weenie and lets go.”

Cody doesn’t turn around to flick Noel off.

“I’m not going, I’ll Uber back to the hotel. Too tired from all the sex I have, you know. 

Noel doesn’t really laugh, he snickers or hums. He laments about Cody’s depressive behavior. Cody listens even though he doesn’t want to.

He sits down on the couch and he expects for Noel to leave but the couch dips next to him and he pretends not to be ecstatic about it.

“Look dude, it’s just a party. Get wasted and hang out it doesn’t matter.”

Cody responds in silence, the same as a request to leave.

He hears Noel sigh and he thinks about his eyes close behind the lids and he hears the thrum of Noel’s breath in his ribcage. Cody hears all of the disappointments, Noel doesn’t share.

Noel stands, so he does too. The world sways beneath him, he didn’t realize how drunk he was.

“I’m sorry.” Cody whispers and it’s painful, feels like twisting a knife in an infected wound. “I’m sorry.” He repeats.

They’re very close to eachother. Noel’s eyes and mouth and smile are inches away and the melodic swaying of the alcohol in his blood pulses with need, Cody’s stomach drops.

Noel’s confused or concerned or bored. Cody doesn’t know, but then Cody’s threading his hand into Noel’s hair and smashing his teeth into Noel’s mouth. He knows he must taste like alcohol.

Noel doesn’t exactly kiss him back but Cody is stronger than he looks. Cody doesn’t stop until he’s satisfied and laps into Noel’s mouth, devouring him.

Noel’s eyes are rimmed red and his hair is everywhere. Cody sees the punch coming but can’t do anything to miss it.

It rips through his jaw and tingles to his back and hurts in heart. He opens his mouth to apologize and vomits all over his own feet.

“Fuck you Cody.” Noel drips off with poison

He still likes the way Noel says his name. Even if it’s like this. 

“I’m sorry.” He retches the same time the door slams shut. Vomit is all over his 400 dollar converse. 

“Fuck.”


	5. Shows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothin happens in this, Cody just feeling sorry for hisself as a job. Next two chapters may very likely be in the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for grammar, comments deeply welcomed

The shows are strained, only for him.

The jokes reverb off the base of Cody’s skull like he's reading a script. It’s lifeless and dull but the crowd always roars. It gives him a fucking headache.

Noel still smiles with all his teeth and ribs the fans. Cody bounces through the motions and it comes out of his mouth sounding the same. 

Nothing’s the same though, but sometimes the dull hum of gratuitous praise washes him clean, He likes feeling normal, that his sins have been blessed away.

Often it washes over him like a sea of red. Like Moses whispers and threatens to drown him in the crimson pain of his own making. His cane is a bottle of champagne, he marches alone in the expanse. 

It feels like the spotlights are pointing at him in mockery, like he should be wearing whiteface and hanging out in a sewer. 

He does his amusing little dance for the sixteen year olds at barrier. He tries not to feel like a joke.

Noel and Cody are sitting next to eachother for questions. It makes his stomach hurt.

There’s a lot of gesturing between the sound guys in his peripheral but the edges haze where the light glares. 

“What’s the best memory you guys have together.”  
It’s some white girl with minced bangs.

Noel laughs at the question, Cody giggles derivatively.

Cody and Noel go through short anticlimactic banter over who’s the question for. The girl gets flustered, the joke lay in a casket made for horses.

Noel ends up answering, he recounts Jimmy Fallon and that entire press week, Cody intercepts where he needs to.

The question is already answered when Cody mentions Paris.

It’s mean, mean-spirited to strip himself bare on stage, to undress Noel too and Noel looks at him with genuine contempt or maybe fear. Though now he is already naked and the lights keep him warm

It’s a short story because there’s too many details to keep trapped behind his tongue, sometimes he feels like he might choke on it.

“There was this little Italian food place with a server who genuinely wanted us dead. I didn’t know if it was like he hated Americans or we smelled bad or something...” 

Noel watched Cody talk and watched him lie.

They move on. 

Someone asks when’s the wedding and if they can come. Noel doesn’t really answer.

The show finishes and it was a good one, he doesn’t remember it clearly as soon as he meanders out of the light.

Noel blatantly ignores him backstage. It’s better than the pressure of anger, the black eye his makeup person hid throbs.

Cody pretends to not notice being ignored, even asks the tour manager to book flight tickets far from eachother. 

It’s different from before, when they’d initially wrapped themselves in eachother and split down the middle. It felt amicable, justified. Noel proposed like he said he would.

Cody keeps himself mired in befores. Thousands of ‘befores’. He wonders, splayed across the couch in a green room in whatever city there in now.


	6. Stylist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is like wayyyyy before Cody completely lost himself. Before he ever cheated on Kelsey, any of it. But it’s not before Noel. He doesn’t count what they have as cheating because it’s a lot more inevitable then everything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an awful passion project, that I may very well never finish. I keep hinting at Noel and Cody and I promise to breach the concept eventually lol.
> 
> DONT SHOW THE BOYS. Rpf is vaguely weird so I apologize in general.

Cody’s not used to all the fussing.

The fluttering of human machines that do this and that and strip him of being a person and anything more than a business model. He should be used to it at this point. Instead he jumps a little when the wardrobe girl feathers his collar and rubs her hand under his ear.

He’d been staring into his lighted likeness, a large mirror that made him feel small. He could see where his skin was starting to sag. He kept wondering if he’d always been this old.

“You are... all about.. done here, Mr.Ko.” She fussed a little more around his edges and he hadn’t realized how welcome the touch really was. He hadn’t seen Kelsey in almost two months. Not physically, where he could remind himself of how much he loved her. He could play her tinny voice over the speaker of his phone but it wasn’t beating the girls at shows he had to swat off to get to his green rooms.

“Wow yeah thank you.” He looked tired.

“No problem Sir.”

He pushed a soft exhale out of his nose, laughter bubbling around his throat.

“It’s so weird to have people call me Sir. Like how old are you; 19? 20?” “You don’t have to do that.”

She smiled at their reflection where she was still standing behind him, a bashful tint lighting all her features. The hum of worker bees passed around them, shuffling with clothes and people with clipboards and other stuff that made them look busy.

“No, uh.. yeah. It’s just like my job or,” She pauses and breaks the eye contact they were holding. She lowers her head and he can’t see her face really but he knows she’s smiling and so suddenly he’s filled with this light feeling. Talking to someone who isn’t tainted in the way of the world. Just bright bumbling innocence. He feels so drunk on it, his stomach turns.

He smiles at her reflection and catches himself from thinking she’s pretty, because there’s a lot of pretty girls on the road. It’s just she has this dark hair that’s fawns around her face and docile features like a bunny, some adorable animal of prey.

“No, I just like went to this briefing before the show and... like, because I’m new- I started a couple a weeks ago with this agency or whatever.” She kept gulping down her words and Cody was enamored hanging off her words like she was speaking in tongues.

“They were saying to like, mind your client and make sure they feel important or something like that.... n-not that you’re not important or anything-“ 

He cut her off with a laugh on a rant she looked like she was about to start.

“I am not that important, it’s okay.” He smiles and looks away from the mirror. He turns back toward her. Immediately too close. His head perched over the back of the chair meeting the lines of her cleavage. He jolts back burned and laughs at his over correction.

He rubs an cold hand on his burning hot neck, sheepish in his actions. The girls seems nonplussed, but the tips of her ears are bright red. It feels like they’ve been flirting or something for hours , even though they’ve barely said anything to eachother. Tension corded up all through his body like he’s going on a first date. He realizes belatedly he’s just horny.

She steps back and smiles. Her foot about to get caught in a running black wire taped to the ground attached to something he can’t see.

He reaches his hand out and grabs her forearm as she’s tripping. He pulls her upright after quickly rocketing out the chair to pretend to be a knight in shining armor. 

“Hey woah, cmon you gotta be careful.” He laments fake seriously. 

She hums and points her head toward the ground and jerkingly snaps her head like a bobble head in agreement and she’s too close, he knows. She stretches to hold her right shoulder in her hand. 

“Oh, I’m so so sorry.” He angles her chin up and it’s obviously overfamiliar and he’s reckless doing it and he feels gross, like he’s taking advantage but she’s let’s him and proves his point. “Did I hurt you.” And she shakes her head violently to the left and right. 

“No I just have this titanium shoulder, it’s kinda bullshit.”

“You just ~have~ a titanium shoulder. That’s not a thing that people just have is it.” He’s reaching toward her shoulder before he catches himself.

She fumbles around a laugh, and she catches his eyes. “It’s dumb, uh.. the whole story. I have to-“ she points generally behind her with her thumb taking her hand off her shoulder. “I have to go talk to.. or uh go fix this.. uhm thing.” 

“So, bye.” She says already nodding a goodbye and walking away 

Cody gulps and feels slapped or skinned and obvious. He feels so obvious that he can’t breathe. He wilts back into the styling chair. 

He rests his elbows in the desk in front of him and places his head on his hands and groans into the space. 

“Going through something dude.” Noel jokes.

His voice is welcome in ears and he’s also sticky with embarrassment, wishing he could be alone and held in someone’s arms at the same time.

“I need to see Kelsey, like yesterday.” And he hears Noel laugh, boisterous and always vaguely accusatory.

“No, I know what you mean. It’s crazy how long it feels like I haven’t seen Aleena. I think she warped my brain, Pavlovian style.” 

“God dude, I literally-“ Cody starts at a speaking tone, he darts his eyes around and leans closer to Noel who’s sitting sideways out the styling chair facing Cody.

“I literally feel like I just harassed my stylist, she was being nice to me and I acted like a fucking dick.” Cody whispers.

“What.” Noel asks already laughing, unbelieving.

“Dude are you serious.” His laugh getting swallowed up. 

“No, or I don’t know, she left...” 

“Dude.” Noel says. “I’m just not gonna listen to whatever the fuck you’re about to say, cause I don’t wanna know.” “You have a girl back home, alright dude, act like it.”

He got up to leave but before he did, he leaned closer to Cody, under the shell of his ear. A stolen moment.

“And me, you have me.”

Cody shivers. And Noel is already walking away.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers but no-ones around in time to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments well appreciated


	7. Tension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody and Noel argue about Noel’s insecurities and Cody apologizes with weed. In conclusion, Wade definitely does burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of Noel and Cody :) a lot more dialogue than normal a lot less scene building than I usually do but I think this chapter didn’t really need it. Also, Cody is so fucking clueless. 
> 
> Don’t show the boys (y)

Noel drove too cautiously, it reminded Cody too much of his mom, he grips the grab handles like they’re swerving.

It smells sweet in the car like Aleena’s perfume, it’s clean too, not like his. Kelsey had his car anyway stashed in the suburbs somewhere with her family, while her car’s in the shop.

The air is dense, stifling. Hot and sweltering with the heater turned all the way up and the sun setting behind the car before five p.m.

When they pull into Cody’s garage he’s sweating but he hasn’t said a word to Noel who’s lips are drawn into a short sharp line. 

His legs seems to stop working, and he’s glaring at the dashboard like it’ll speak for him. Afraid to walk away from the situation because he knows it won’t be unscathed.

“Look... man I’m sorry. I’m not saying, or I wasn’t trying to say that you’re insecure, but you do get like weirdly defensive about stuff and the whole thing..”

“Yeah man, I’m not tripping. We’re good.” Clipped and rushed Noel insists.

Cody hears all the words that Noel doesn’t say even when he doesn’t want to, but he still just pushes open the car door while casting a sideways glance at the rouged bridge of Noel’s nose.

Noel’s already turning the key when Cody gets his leg out the car. 

He considers not turning around but his heart is already jumping around in his chest, sick and sinking. He leans back into the car much to Noel’s chagrin.

“Seriously dude I’m not gonna be able to sleep if you’re mad at me, just come upstairs and we can pack a bowl or something.” Cody apologizes.

Noel shares a cursory glance with Cody and considers him for a beat too long. Then they’re both walking up the stairs to his place and the slight jingle of Noel’s keys is a cacophony in the hallway.

When Cody unlocks his door after two seconds too long of awkward fumbling, he beelines to his bedroom to get the jar in his nightstand drawer.

Cody still doesn’t really like smoking, gets panicky and his palms sweat. He feels like lava when he’s really fucked up. He’s jealous of the way Noel actually looks calm, pressed into the creases of the couch. The brim of his hat low over his probably red eyes and Cody can’t see them even though they’re sitting on the same couch.

A faint tendril of murky smoke pools out around the rim of his bong and his grinder scrapes along the glass table when Cody sets the bong down. Its deafeningly loud. 

Cody and Noel don’t really talk, at least not for a while. Cody replays his own words from the podcast recording over and over in his head, like a skipping cd.

He keeps seeing the way Noel’s face twists.

“You know that I don’t think you’re insecure right I was just..”

“No man, I am. I really am. I get so caught up in my own shit. It’s not even your fault.” Noel laughs a short cynical guffaw and he sits up on the couch. Cody copies him and doesn’t even notice. 

They talk after that. Really talk. Mumbled and slurred and sloppy but easy. Aleena calls an hour and half after they got to Cody’s house asking where Noel is. He says that they’re working on a video and that’d he’d be home before 8. 

Cody doesn’t ask why he lied about making a video, but the lie catches him offguard, he couldn’t fathom Noel lying to Aleena about anything.

Noel loses the rod in his spine after hanging up and settles into the crease in the couch. It doesn’t take much before Noel is ranting to Cody again.

“Dudes have always been bigger than me, I’d always be the smallest motherfucker in a group of kids, the only time I ever felt like I was on the same level as them is when I was talking shit. I was so scared that they’d find out that I was.. I don’t know, not enough.” 

And it’s sticky, clammy and sharp around Cody’s limbs. Tongue dry against the roof of his mouth. It’s so weird to see Noel so vulnerable, Cody feels like only in this moment if he poked Noel he’d bleed. 

Cody and Noel are close, a mush of a THC induced haze. 

“And I was looking after my dad all the time, I’d get home and I’d fucking cook when I was like 11 and in middle school. My mom was sick of him and I don’t blame her yaknow. I felt like a stand in wife. Fucking cooking and cleaning and doting on my dad like some Step-ford bitch. Think it gave me a complex, I didn’t even get to fuck a tennis coach.” Cody hums a laugh at the last sentence but it’s sad and tugs at Cody like it’s drowning him.

Cody doesn’t have anything to say, he’d been filling the lulls with the soft murmurs of agreements. Half listening. His childhood wasn’t harrowing, he never even really felt out of place. He didn’t relate to what Noel was saying at all and it made him feel funny.

Cody feels Noel staring at the side of his temple, odd, noting he can’t really feel his toes. 

Cody slaps his hands together shaking some weed debris off that was lingering on his finger tips.

“Its just who you were as a kid doesn’t have anything to do with who you are anymore. We are fucking record label signed, we have like two and half tours under our belt. So like that kid with the desperately needed growth spurt isn’t you man.”

Noel laughs, a deep belly laugh. The sound bounces off all four walls and settles in his chest. Cody joins him even though he knows what he said wasn’t funny. 

Noel settles into his himself, hat off now and low red eyes on display, Cody feels tempted to record just to post it on his story.

“Besides Aleena, You are probably the only person I’d ever talk about this stuff to.”

And Cody laughs for no other reason but to laugh and Noel joins in a muted giggle.

“Yeah man I know what you mean.” Cody replies facing the ceiling and his head just starts to bloom with a little headache. His head is lulled back against the couch and his searing ears feel good on the untouched upholstery.

He rolls his neck on the top of the couch to look at the side of Noel.

A tension blossoms at the edge of his consciousness. Really it had been there all day. A malleable little reminder of something undisclosed. At first it was Noel’s anger and now it’s the way Noel slides closer to him. 

Cody hadn’t noticed and now his high was coming down and clarity was coming like a freight train over every single square inch of his skin while he looked at the stubbly sides of Noel’s head. 

Then Noel rocked his neck towards Cody and they were staring at each-other. Completely too close, and Cody realized how far he’d walked into this situation, the way the air lingered almost palpable.

And then Noel was kissing him. 

And then he was pushing Noel away.

And then Noel was rushing out of Cody’s front door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously this isn’t the end of them yet but we have to see where this goes


	8. Awards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Award seasonnn, we’re back in the present and we are loving it. This is happening in the middle of their tour in the lovely land of LA.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters are getting worse as I continue and I apologize for that. Just two more chapters left and I might have to change that happy ending tag.

Cody can’t taste the champagne he’s drinking, and his fingertips are numb from the cold glass constantly getting refilled.

The starchy gauze feeling of a tuxedo jacket pulls at the places he’s sweating but the dim lights and cool conditioned air feels oxymoronic. 

The venue is decked out in red and gold, fancy in a way that makes him uncomfortable, a deep black tablecloth drapes over his knees and it’s silhouette bounces with him. 

He hates award shows, the stuffy lighting and stuffy people and pretending not to notice how important some of these influencers think they are. Kelsey looks beautiful in contrast to the depravity of “celebrity” elite. Windswept and nonchalant and nervous in the way her shoulders bunch. 

He looks at Noel who’s sitting to the side of him on the round table with Aleena draped over his side. Biting his fingernails and scrolling on his phone. 

Their table produces a little ruckus with assorted friends he realizes he misses and crew he’d forgotten. They make conversation and Cody tries to be somewhere else. Kelsey’s talking to him and he’s sure he’s responding but his head doesn’t feel his mouth move. 

They’re nominated for best podcast and comedy channel. Which is somehow funnier than anything they’ve ever said. Cody hadn’t released a video that wasn’t basically promoting music for months. He wipes the side of his mouth with a napkin and it feels cheap.

Noel turns to him with a cautious look on his face, they’re still not really talking but the animosity simmers everyday.

Cody gives an awkward grin and Noel gestures to Cody’s champagne flute and Cody mouths three.

Noel quirks his head and the soft indent of anger lines his eyebrows and it makes Cody feel good.

They’re walking through an array of staggered tables after Noel pulls Aleena in a whisper and Cody doesn’t remember to give Kelsey the luxury.

The hallway leading to the bathroom is a little less loud than the main room, mildly deserted, the telltale scuffle of shuffling workers in dapper bow ties that make Cody grin lazily.

Noel pesters him in a hushed whisper, Cody laughs when Noel says he's gonna be like Bradley Cooper in front of a bunch of kids. Cody is a little drunk, soft around the edges.

“Shutup dude, I’m alright, you’re talking like you care.

“Cody..” Noel trails off, “I don’t care, but we come as a package deal and I’m not gonna go onstage and embarrass myself just so you can mope in public.”

“You care about our image now.” Cody mutters under his breath pushing past Noel to go anywhere but here.

Noel grabs Cody around his shoulder and Cody could leave if he wanted but he literally couldn’t remember the last time Noel had touched him in public.

“You gave this up.” A soft almost watery accusation close to Cody’s ear.

Cody jolts back against the wall when Noel releases him at the clatter of metal plates holding more alcohol politely passes through them.

“Noel, you pretended for months that it hadn’t even happened. I had to corner you at your own fucking house just so you’d admit it.” Cody tries to keep his voice low, his blood hot with remembering.

His argument doesn’t even make sense, he just recalls with so much fervor how hard he tried to forget and forgive, let go and stop thinking about it.

“Cody whatever man. I don’t wanna argue with you.”  
Dropping a hurtful sigh, casting a sideways glance over Cody’s shoulder at a woman pushing open the restroom door.

All Cody could do was stare at him, trying to remember why he called it quits, got nervous about the money, about the houses and about Kelsey. Terrified of being something he hadn’t known he was. It wasn’t real, it was sweaty handjobs in cars and deleted text messages. Hotel rooms and dropped calls. 

But Cody was staring at Noel and he couldn’t see how any of this was worth it. The awards, the money, any of it because he’s losing Noel and he can’t do anything about it.

Noel was heading back to the table and Cody wanted to burn the world down. 

He stood there staring at the blank black carpeted ceiling, drowning standing up. Kelsey appears in his line of vision when he hears a muffled pinpoint of her heels digging into the carpet.

“You okay babe.” Kelsey snakes her hand around his middle and she’s a little taller than him in heels so she looks down when she presses a kiss to his lips.

“Yeah I’m good, just trying to sober up.”

“Yeah?” A comforting lull in her voice when she asks. “Just came to get you because we’re up next for comedy.”

He nods his head and leans his forehead against hers and feels so at home. Dizzy with admiration.

They walk back in careful silence. Kelsey says that Noel is pissed at him and Cody agrees.

They win the category and their table erupts. Cody can’t stop smiling and it looks like Noel can’t either.

When they go to grab the award, their hands slide over each other and they pretend for each other that they don’t notice.

Noel thanks Aleena and the team and he thanks Cody at the end.

Cody thanks Kelsey and the team and he thanks Noel too.

That’s just not the order he’d put those three in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can someone please teach me how to write dialogue lol.


	9. Green Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kelsey knows. Cody’s boned. Noel’s happy. Aleena’s about to be betrothed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost at the end lmfaooooooo.

Cody hates the last couple weeks of tour, they drag and make his brain sludgy. He’s anticipating the post tour depression like a soldier coming home from war. Like Private Ryan perplexed by cereal, he has to decidedly stare into the abyss of Kelsey’s legs. 

Two more shows in LA and then back to “normal”. This last weekend with Kelsey at home after the award show is simultaneously monotonous Bliss and torture worse than Sisyphus. 

The problem with Kelsey and with being with her, is how much he loves her. It’s like the opposite of a problem but still it’s not his fault he doesn't know how to love two people. 

Deep down he knows that he loves her, doesn't have to convince himself because he can feel it in his chest when he looks at her. 

Then Noel blew his whole fucking universe apart and he ruined that anyway. He had to go and fuck his way through the eastern seaboard, just to chase the feeling that Noel gave him like he didn’t have it right here in his bed at home.

Kelsey has learned to argue in the car because Cody’s known to walk away before he admits he’s wrong. Cody can’t tell she’s angling for a fight the way she jabs at the little places in his facade that she can see through. 

Cody wants to beg her not to do this before getting to his last show, She’s worked up about the way he’s been dismissing her and it’s too wordy and combative, too much right before a show so he turns his brain off and let's her yell.

Backstage, Noel is already there. He looks— he can smell him, that stupid fucking cologne. Cody is just getting used to finding men… attractive. Can’t tell where jealousy and lust coincide.

Aleena sat over his lap and Cody wouldn’t know if Noel liked PDA but he watches them kiss a little deeper than they usually do when there's people watching and Cody gets a little nauseous.

He looks away. He looks at Kelsey. He doesn't see Noel when he comes up behind them, he slaps a hand on Cody’s shoulder and Cody goes rigid, hot and cold all over. Recently, anytime that Kelsey and Noel are in the same room it feels like a competition. Noel’s hand feels like an admission of guilt. He tries not to keep a little scoreboard in his head.

Cody also tries not to overcompensate for his desires but he still ends up all over Kelsey before the show. While she's on the sidelines, he mentions her in his greetings and talks about her too much in the Q&A. When they get backstage he's all over her again and the reverential “ding ding ding” of the scoreboard blares in his head.

In the green room there's people milling around, friends, stage crew and Noel. 

Noel. Noel. Noel. Noel. Noel. 

The only thing his brain can compute even when his woman is sitting in his lap.

He’s drunk and he’s too evocative in his touch. Cody kisses deeply and methodically like he's trying to pass a test.

He looks over the line of her eyes and tries desperately (not) to catch Noel’s but he's immersed in some sweet nothing conversation he's having with Aleena anyway. 

He pulls Kelsey off his lap with a little more force than he means to, stalks toward the green room bathroom. The eyes around the room look to him immediately, he can feel them on his back. Before he turns he realizes it’s actually the first-time Noel has really looked at him all day.

Cody can’t pull the door to the bathroom closed and when he looks behind him, Noel stands in the doorway.

“What.” Cody says before splashing warm acrid tap water into his face.

“Tell me this isn’t about- us.” Noel whispers, the door isn’t closed and he’s not even very close. 

“No man, I just needed some air.”

“So you… go inside this dank cell of a bathroom?”

Cody doesn’t say anything, already dreading whatever conversation that Noel is aiming for, especially with everyone here.

“Look, go out there and apologize. -you’re girlfriend is upset.”

“Will you please just shut the fuck up. Please— I can’t stand anymore of your holier than thou attitude.” The words reverb off the metal walls, scarred with lineage of artists he doesn’t know.

“Cody just because you’re a dick, doesn’t mean I’m acting holier than thou or something.” Noel let’s the door close and traps them in the sweaty cell. Cody prickles under his skin. “The world doesn’t revolve around you man.”

Cody stares into the mirror and watches Noel in the foreground.

Beautiful.

Cody pushes around Noel, doesn’t give him the satisfaction of groveling or whatever he was expecting. His stomach is a roiled coil of pain.

Cody realizes with each conversation that Noel is over him. Noel got what he needed out of the relationship and now he has a fiancé. When this all started Cody could’ve sworn he was doing Noel a favor. Granting him a wish. 

It’s all over and Cody knows so completely that Noel gave him so much more than he ever did. 

The main room is stagnant with unfettered tension, guess the sound carried. Cody pulls Kelsey out the room.

He apologizes first, in the hallway towards the alley exit. Says sorry, says he’s drunk. She doesn’t say anything. Holds her shoulders across her chest and leans against the wall away from him.

“Kelsey- I have to tell the truth.” Hot worried breaths tumble off over his tongue. “Kelsey, I am so fucking in love with you. Like it hurts my heart how much.” Cody holds the tops of her arms and leans in to speak to her.

“I love you so much and I am starting to feel sick everytime I see you because of all the lies. I- I wanted to admit it… I just couldn’t admit to myself.”

“On tour- I was.. I was sleeping with...” he gulps. “I was sleeping with girls on tour.” A knot of pain untangles in the top part of his chest. A gush of air explodes off of him.

“I slept with so many girls, I was trying to repl-.” The light ring in the darkened hallway of a piercing slap travels down his bones through his heart.

She’s already walking away when he recuperates.

“Fuck.”

He turns his head towards the opposite end of the hallway and Noel is standing there. He looks just as beautiful.

Then Cody vomits and the scene is so sordidly overdone he laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I start writing sad Barry and Iris smut would anybody read it lol.


	10. The Wedding Finale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cody comes to terms with the damage to himself and others and pays the price.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its the enddd, who knew we would ever get here, im glad i got to write it and im glad that i finally finished. shoutout to every single person who commented nice words, you guys all rock. cody in this story really is my passion project, i want better for this man so bad.
> 
> Dont show the boys (y)

The last show passes unceremoniously, so does the end of tour party well- as unceremonious as an end of tour party can be. Coke and alcohol are just placeholders for conversation and it's not like Cody wants to talk.

He doesn’t have anything to say to anyone after Kelsey stopped answering his calls, she sent him a perfunctory text telling him she's moving all her stuff out, it made him wonder what they didn't own together. The lights bouncing off the walls in the dim club space are dull. Noel tries and fails not to smear dirt in his wound with an invitation to his bachelor party.

After the stare-down in the hallway, Noel has been nice, amicable like before. Cody hates it, almost convinces himself he hates Noel, he doesn't have to do much introspection to know he hates himself.

Cody had been so ready to force himself into his polite cell of normalcy but now he's staring up at Devon’s guest room ceiling, A couple hours before Noel’s bachelor party and he has to pretend like he doesn’t want to be ripped apart and picked clean.

Cassius pulls some strings and gets one of Noel’s race car driver friends to let them rent a track late that night. He’s not surprised that Cash is the best man knowing the lengths he’s going to for this party. 

Cody tried not to look like he’s actively hating his time there, Devon offered him a bump of an Adderall in the car beforehand if he couldn’t fake a smile. He’s sober, stays sober for some reason off to the sidelines holding a can of beer he doesn’t even open.

God, and Noel’s happy, like a kid in a candy shop. More drunk than he’s seen him in years and smiling, more than he’s done in his presence than he can remember. The track is lit around the edges with walled lights and it feels like they're standing in the end of the world and Cody wishes he could fall into the abyss.

It’s three in the morning with pulsating music around an empty race track and then it’s nine in the morning on Noel’s wedding day and Cody isn’t in his own bed and he’s not even hungover.

He’s not hungover and he still feels nauseous, feels like throwing up everything he’s ever thought of. Empty himself out so he can pretend he’s not already hollow. 

The wedding starts at two in the afternoon and he’s dreading it like it’s the end of the world.

He melts into Devon’s futon wishing he’d woken up later and then a dull vibration of his phone pulses at his hip.

He thinks about letting it ring, watching the ceiling swirl into hieroglyphics, knowing it’s someone who’s planning to scold him about things with Kelsey. He proves he’s a glutton for punishment with how he reaches languidly to pull the phone to his ear.

“Hello.”

“Hey man…. I didn’t think you’d answer.”

“You called my phone wanting me not to answer?” Cody scoffs.

“You’re like the only person in the world who actually checks their voicemail.”

Cody’s heart burns through his chest at Noel’s voice that’s soft with sleep, warm with familiarity. This is a different punishment than he was expecting, this hurts worse. He doesn’t respond. Trying to catch his breath. Trying not to die.

“I wanted to apologize for.. I don’t know—.” Cody hears Noel gulp across the receiver. Cody’s neck is filled with that hot pain before tears and he’s trying desperately to swallow it down before it suffocates him.

“I- I already knew who I was before everything. I mean, I was scared and I hated it but I… I always knew. You were there and -you were always there. I thought it was like that for you too. I thought that you knew.”

Cody breathes, tears stinging the lines of his eyes, fire the same way Noel’s words burn.

“And Aleena,” Noel chuckles, “God, she knew too. I told her the night of the award show. I told her everything because,” Cody can hear the slight scuffle of Noel’s head and soft sounds of searching for words, “I don’t know, I hated keeping this huge lie from the woman I love and I was losing my mind. I thought I was gonna die. It was worse than when I proposed, and- and I told her and she just looked at me and told me, I know.”

This revelation makes Cody feel sticky, obvious and decrepit. A loser with no posturing, he had no stake in their love at all and all he can do is fume silently.

“She wasn’t even angry, it’s like it didn’t matter at all-”

“You’re saying it didn’t matter. Then what was it- huh Noel.” Cody postulates sitting up in the bed body tensed for a fight.

“No Cody, that’s not what I mean, I just- I’m sorry.” Cody hears Noel emphasize, sees the way his shoulders bunch around the words. 

“I used you to work through this- some fucked up curiosity that I had and I- I know that we set down ground rules and everything but it was selfish of me to include you in my shit man.” 

“And I’m sorry.”

“So you’re bi? Bi-curious?, that’s the conclusion of this? You had some sick perverse desire to fuck me in the ass for a couple months but now it’s all good cause you- you have a fiancée and everything’s fine.” Cody whisper yells into the phone, pleading with his anger for Noel to hold on. To still want him they way Cody couldn’t seem to stop wanting Noel.

“Cody.” Noel breathes on a deep sigh.

“I- I found Aleena before I found out anything about myself, she fucking saved me man and I owe her my life.” Noel gulps and rants. “-but I didn’t get to know everything about myself before her and I was drowning in it.” He laments. “Drowning in how much I used to want you.” He whispers.

“Why are you doing this.” Cody asks. Begs. Cries.

“I just- I thought I should explain or something. We were... together?- for a couple months at the expense of everything.”, Noel gesticulates.

“Whenever we talked there was just all this bad blood and- and you ended it in the first place, so I didn’t get why you fucked everything up again when you kissed me.”

“Noel, I…” Cody gulps around the lump in his heart.

“Noel, I still.. I wish it could be like before. I know I fucked it all up, I just got nervous with how much I actually like, liked you and didn’t know how else to fix it.”

“Cody it’s… it’s not, it’s too late man. I’m getting fucking… married today.” 

“Yeah.” Cody says and he’s crying now, soft silent tears roll fast and the pain holds his neck in a vice.

“You’re getting married today.” And it’s like Cody really realizes it for the first time. Noel’s getting married. It’s over.

“Congratulations Man.” He must look a mess with tears streaming down his face with yesterday's clothes on, sitting on his friend's futon.

“Thank you Cody.” A long pause, a stretch of air that spears tiny holes into Cody's heart in the size and shape of Noel’s earnest words.

“I love you dude.” Noel says and Cody can see Noel’s face pressed against the phone, can smell him and his cologne and he can smell his breath and see the inside of his brain.

“I love you too man.” Cody says when he really means goodbye.

The receiver goes dead and Cody lies back. The hot tears pool behind his ears. He still has to go to a wedding he realizes belatedly, after just bawling his eyes out to the groom he was in love with.

____________________

It’s beautiful, the venue, at the edge of Catalina island. A short cliff and soft waves. Palm trees and the beach not even a mile away. It’s gorgeous. 

The sun overhead hanging as if on a string, like it too wanted to watch them start their forever. Aleena and Noel rented a villa for the reception and for the visitors not far from the beach, an arch was set up just out of view from the balcony that Cody peered over with a Perrier in his hand. 

Realistically, he knew he was hiding but it didn’t matter, no one was looking. God, he was sober, out of choice and all these days in sparkling clarity felt like being drunk.

It’s time before he realizes and he meanders through the courtyard toward the beach as if on stilts, hoping to dissipate, he blinks and he’s sitting in a crisp wooden white chair in the fifth row. 

The aisle is adorned with a white petals of roses or daisies with an ornate arch with gold flecks and litany of flowers showered down over it, the pastor stands under disinterested and sweaty in his robes.

The people are familiar and unfamiliar, flashing against the grain of his sunglasses in small tinted flecks. They come in droves and fill out the seats as it passes two in the afternoon. The chairs fill and on accident he catches a glimpse of Kelsey in his peripheral walking unsteadily in the grass off to the sides and she looks markedly more happy to be here than Cody is. She sits somewhere upfront where they’d reserved their seats, now it’s just empty.

Then the seats are overflowed, even his reserved seat is filled and the soft sounds of the live band off to the side increase in volume as the bridesmaids and groomsmen slowly march down the aisle.

Bridesmaids in powder blue and groomsmen in dark blue with daisies in the lapel. Then the world flashes forward through the pleasantries, even Noel walking down the aisle. They’re saying vows and heartfelt promises of love and time and gratitude, Noel and Aleena both cry and Cody watches through a glass cage.

“I do.” “I do.”

The world erupts and slows back down. Cody is sitting a second too long when everyone rises.

Receptions are an excellent form of torture, parties in general when everything is a suggestion to be less than sober. All the alcohol feels like a recipe for disaster anyway, he’s big enough to admit he doesn’t want to ruin this.

He sits on a bench in the dark corridor of the villa, one yellowed overhead light in the painted cement. He eats through a small slice of wedding cake, like it’s his last meal.

The ruffle of clothes and the jingle of keys slap against the wooden bench before he realizes he’s alone. 

“Hey.” Kelsey says and immediately Cody doesn’t know what to do with his entire body.

“I- i- uh, Hey… what.” Cody fumbles with his flimsy plate as the wedding cake slides in his surprise.

“How are you.” Kelsey murmurs, she pushes hair back behind her ear and watching feels too intimate for a woman he hasn’t seen in almost three weeks.

“I’m good. I’m better and I’m sober and stuff.” Cody gulps.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And he’s smiling and so is she and it feels like maybe everything could be better.

“It was Noel, wasn’t it.” Cody’s smile falls almost as fast as it came.

“What?” Cody whispers, taken aback and exposed.

“You were with Noel, on tour. It was him the whole time.” And she structures it like a question but Cody can hear how sure she is.

Cody is like a fish out of water, unable to think to put any words together. 

“Does Aleena know?” Any answer is an admission of guilt and the soft churn in his stomach tells him he's gonna vomit the truth anyway.

“I- I don’t- she.. um. Yeah, she knows.” Cody places the folded plate on the ground and tries to ignore Kelsey’s sharp breath.

“She doesn't care?” Kelsey says fully looking at Cody, a wet sheen to her eyes. 

And so intensely, Cody wishes he could erase every bad thing he’s ever done to her. He wishes he was never a reason for her pain. He doesn’t know how to say sorry in a way that matters.

Cody shakes his head minutely. Kelsey nods rapidly and wipes her eyes and the bobble of her body forcing down her emotions.

“Okay, well. Uhm- I’m happy that you’re sober and it was nice talking to you.” She says while standing pulling her purse up close to her body and blotting tears with the edge of her sweater. 

She stands right in front of Cody looking down at him as he sits on the bench in a wrinkly suit and a frown.

“I got most of my stuff out so you can go back home tonight if you want. I’ll be by on Thursday to get the last of it, if u want to be out of the house.” She stretches out her hand in offering to shake it and the action is so alienating for someone who he has been in love with for three years it might as well have been a slap.

He reaches up and shakes it and feels cold all over and burned right through.

“I hope you find someone that makes you happy.” She says over her shoulder red rimmed eyes staring into his walking out into the dark and Cody nods a small thank you feeling like he had been shot.

He sits in the dark trying to remember who he is, and he pounds the rest of the water in his water bottle and it’s decidedly not strong enough.

Alcohol tastes like bad memories and then it just tastes like juice. The only downside is how much he has to pee. The darker it gets, the windier. The sea air blowing over the villa. Not that Cody can feel it, hot under the collar from his third shot of Bacardi. Noel and Aleena and the wedding party sit on raised thrones. The only happy monarchs.

Cody sways on a white stool at the bar, chewing on beer nuts and the inside of his cheek as the speeches start. They’re all empty and thoughtless, it’s not like any of them know Noel like Cody does.

Someone announces a free mic. Or maybe they don’t, talking just ceases and Cody makes a beeline for the edge of the dance floor where the dj connects the mic.

“Hi! Hey, Good evening.” Cody says after a short scuffle for the microphone. A short screech of feedback loops to the crowd. He can only imagine the looks on Noel and Aleenas faces but he doesn’t address them as he speaks.

“Let’s give a little round of applause for the bride and groom! Yeah!.” Scattered healthy applause erupts, trepidation built around the slur at the edge of Cody’s words.

Cody turns to the raised seats behind him, and boy do they make a good couple.

“Wow, I just- have you ever seen reeal looooove like Noel and Aleena. They are the kind of couple that you look up to, yaknow.” Cody says, staring at the wedding party who have varying degrees of wariness on their faces.

He faces the crowd,“And Noel he’s not really an emotional guy yaknow, not into all the mushy gushy stuff.” The slur of words has a lilting sweetness of remembrance that he can even hear. “He still loves Aleena so openly, let's the world know with how he looks at her and talks about her and I always thought that was beautiful.”

The hot steam of anger Cody had built in his chest dissipates in front of this crowd, the loose twinge from the alcohol doesn’t step in front of his brain like usual, “I don’t really have much to say actually, I just uhm..I’m really happy for them, really really happy.” Cody says 

“And uh, I’m glad I could help Noel find himself.” Cody says into the mic and the ominous well wishes fall deaf on hearing ears and the muted applause drains into his ears after the loud pulse of his heart.

He drops the mic before he looks back and the DJ catches it, the long haired guy interjects with an awkward pleasantry and then stilted music.

He half expects Noel to corner him, half crying in the villa restroom but the only company is the flickering light and his labored sad breaths. 

He sits out on the deck and throws back as much champagne as he possibly can, and then he wakes up drooling onto hotel grade pillows. 

The next eighteen hours is a collection of hellos and goodbyes and pretending to be alive and then he’s in Devon's car at his place getting all his shit stored in trash bags and then he’s at his house.

And the house doesn’t really feel like his, Kelsey having ransacked it and withdrawing so much of herself which was also so much of him. And it’s trashed, looks worse than he feels. Scattered boxes and packing tape. 

The drapes to his patio are open, open faced to the pain, Cody pretends it’s okay to be alone, sitting stiffly on the edge of the couch.

And out on his patio, the view is cheap. Laid out like a movie where it matters that he’s rich enough to afford it. Rowed houses slanting sideways down toward forever.

He stares out into the light blue abyss, alone in his big house with 7 figures in his bank account. 

He wonders if it was worth it. Noel, the tours, Kelsey. If love and success are an antithesis of each other. 

He goes into his kitchen and pours himself a shot and still he doesn’t know the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cant speak for the conclusion but i hope that you know the end of a story cant always be sweet. i hope everyone noticed that the last chapter ended the way the first started lol. i hope to write more noel and cody stuff in the future that actually has a good ending unlike the two ive wrote so far. i hope all of you out there will enjoy those too.

**Author's Note:**

> Probably gonna forget to update. Leave comments I’m really bad at this.


End file.
